The children of Gaza prepare for peace
Some of you may have noticed that posting has been a bit less consistent than usual today. One reason is that this morning I attended my second grader's party for finishing the book of Breishith (Genesis).The 'Palestinians' of Islamic Jihad in Gaza are learning very different things than my 8-year old is learning. Here's one picture:
And here's another:
And I almost forgot to mention: These 'Palestinian' feigalehs are in Kindergarten. The children were dressed up in uniforms of Jihad's armed-wing, the al-Quds Brigades, and each of them received a toy rifle. Some of them held up photos of Islamic Jihad founder Fathi Shaqaqi.Many more pictures of (apparently the same) graduation from Challah Hu Akhbar (who actually had this story yesterday) here.
The event was attended by the children's relatives, some of whom belong to Islamic Jihad and other armed Palestinian factions. [Other factions? Is that like the Gerrer's sending to the Vizhnitz cheder l'havdil? (With apologies to those who don't get the question - it was too good a line not to include) CiJ].
During the ceremony the children were asked to stand next to mock coffins draped with flags of the various armed factions. The flags bore the images of "shahids (martyrs)."
One child, Hamza, said "When I grow up I'll join Islamic Jihad and the al-Quds Brigades. I'll fight the Zionist enemy and fire missiles at it until I die as a shahid and join my father in heaven.
"I love the resistance and the martyrs and Palestine, and I want to blow myself up on Zionists and kill them on a bus in a suicide bombing," he said.
During the ceremony the children "demonstrated" how Israel treats Palestinian prisoners. In the display, handcuffed children depicting inmates were placed in cages, with an "Israeli guard" standing nearby.
Another child depicting an Israeli prison guard placed the head of a "Palestinian prisoner" in a bucket of water to demonstrate how Palestinian prisoners are "tortured" in Israel.
In the meantime, an op-ed in Haaretz complains about the 'militarism' in Israeli kindergartens.
It begins in kindergarten, when one day the parents are asked to prepare a package of goodies and to help to draw greetings for the soldiers of the Duvdevan elite undercover unit who have adopted the kindergarten.Sorry, but this isn't militarism, it's patriotism, and there is nothing wrong with a country teaching even its young to appreciate those who serve it. Even Kindergarteners. That's a lot different than teaching 5 and 6-year olds to be 'martyrs' and to kill their enemies. Too bad Haaretz and its unquestioning readers cannot tell the difference.
Miraculously, even if it was done without awareness, the request/order came during the weeks of Passover and Holocaust Remembrance Day, of Memorial Day and Independence Day, a period full of days of majesty, which for the children ended up in a mixture of Pharoah, Hitler, fireworks and "the people who died for the country because of the Arabs who wanted to expel the Jews," as my four-year-old daughter once told me.
The militarism in Israeli society is reflected not only among the gang of Sayeret Matkal elite commando graduates that dominates the country, but also on the everyday level, ostensibly banal and unthreatening, like the adoption of kindergartens by army units, or a brief holiday visit to Israel Defense Forces bases. And if there's nothing wrong with such an early start to preparing the children for their next role, the one that will begin at the age of 18, clearly the school system has to mobilize for the purpose.
Labels: Gaza, Kindergarten, Palestinian Islamic Jihad
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 7:24 PM
3 Comments:
At your 2nd grader's school, are they teaching them to find Jewish individuals in the diaspora to be friends with? Or are they ignoring the topic or teaching them that an American Jew, for example, is no more important to Israel than someone from China? (A very smart PhD Israeli I know told me that that is what they said @ his school growing up.) Even when differences are apparent, I think the kids in Jewish communities all over would benefit from the idea of friendship. Like they do in Scouts.
Sunlight,
I don't want to give too many details about my kids' school online, so let's just say that a lot of the kids are children of immigrants from Western countries.
"...Sorry, but this isn't militarism, it's patriotism."
There we see in Haaretz the typical Western leftist "journalist" view of patriotism. Over Memorial Day here in the US, there was a controversy over an MSNBC TV "journalist" saying he didn't like referring to American servicemen and women who died in the line of duty as "heroes". It encourages militarism and wars, you see.
(Never mind that had both America and Israel not prevailed in the wars our two nations have been forced to fight, neither America nor Israel would still exist. That's too difficult a game of mental.connect.the.dots for a typical "progressive" to accomplish.)
There we have it. The West's neo-liberals have raised not getting it to an art form. They are Western societies' cancer within, far more dangerous to Western Civilization than the knuckle-dragging Islamofascists who want to take the whole world back to the good old days of the 7th century in Arabia.
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